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[German version] The first toilet facilities connected with sewers in the Graeco-Roman cultural area are to be found in Minoan Crete (sit-down latrines in the palace of Knosos), then not again until the Hellenistic period; in archaic and classical Greece, latrines that consisted of a seat over a transportable vessel were predominant. This comparably primitive principle is also further encountered in Roman culture (for instance in the multi-storey tenement blocks in the large cities), whilst from…

[German version] Scratched or scored lines in architecture (Construction technique; Building trade). The architect's plan was successively transmitted to the emerging building at a scale of 1:1 by tracing. Tracings are recorded from the pre-Greek era in Mesopotamian and Egyptian architecture; in Graeco-Roman architecture, tracing long made scale construction drawings unnecessary. Well-preserved or documented tracings are found, among other places, on the Propylaea in Athens, the large tholos in Delphi and the more recent temple of Apollo in Didyma. Höcker, Christoph (Kissi…

[German version] (περίστασις; perístasis). Ancient Greek term for a ring of columns (Column), and hence a colonnade in a Greek temple or other ancient buildings with surrounding columns [1]. The colonnade can be formed of a single row (Peripteros) or a double row (Dipteros) (cf. also Peristylion. On formal problems relating to peristaseis in Greek temple construction: Angle triglyph problem; Inclination; Curvature; Proportion). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography 1 F. Ebert, Fachausdrücke des griechischen Bauhandwerks I. Der Tempel, Diss. Würzburg, 1910, 23…

[German version] of Megara, son of Naustrophus, as an  architect and engineer, presumably under the tyrant  Polycrates, was responsible for the construction of a  water supply system for the town of  Samos (modern Pythagoreion on the island of Samos) described by Herodotus (3,60) as one of the great feats of Greek engineering; there is no evidence of further work by E. The system that was rediscovered in 1853 consists of four building complexes connected with each other: a fountainhead building situated high in the mountain ( Wells) with a great covered water reservoir, a pipeline c. 840…

[German version] ( tector albarius). According to Vitr. De arch. 2,8,20 a Roman craftsman who was responsible for plastering walls, as a rule in three layers, the top layer of which could be painted or stuccoed while still moist. Construction technique; Fresco; Stucco; Wall-painting Höcker, Christoph (Kissing)

[German version] (also Lauretum, from laureus, ‘bay-tree’). Place on the Aventine Hill in Rome ( Roma) where bay-trees grow. According to legend the burial place of Titus Tatius (Festus 496 L.). Already at the time of Varro (Varro, Ling. 5,152) the site could no longer be located with certainty. The possibility that L. was divided into two parts ( L. minor and L. maior) is a matter for discussion because of two corresponding street names in Regio XIII (cf. CIL 6,975). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Richardson, 234f.

[German version] Architect of Samos. For a considerable fee he built the pontoon bridge over the Bosporus (Hdt. 4,87,1ff.) for Darius [1] I in 513/2 BC in the context of the campaign against the Scythians. M. attained fame through a votive offering in the Heraeum of Samos: a panel painting described in detail by Herodotus (4,88,1-89,2), which depicted the (pontoon) bridge and praised the architect in an epigram. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography H. Svenson-Evers, Die griechische Architekten archaischer und klassischer Zeit, 1996, 59-66 (with additional literature).

[German version] From the Greek κρυπτή ( kryptḗ); in the description of the Nile barge of Ptolemy IV, transmitted in Athenaeus 5, 205a, it designated a closed walkway lit by windows. In Lat. texts cryptoporticus could cover various items of architecture such as cellars (Vitr. De arch. 6, 8), vaults (Juv. 5, 106) or even subterranean, vaulted cult or grave structures. In modern archaeological terminology the term cryptoporticus is used synonymously with crypta; this compound word from crypta and   porticus that comes to us only from Pliny (Ep. 2,17,20; 5,6…

[German version] The cylinder, in some cases lavishly sculpted and sometimes decorated with a double trochilus and convex and concave sections, that forms the 'middle layer' of a conventional old-Ionic column base (Samos, Heraion; Column). The spira supports the equally sculpted and convexly curved torus . The spira customarily rises from a plinth. A special form of Ionic basis is developed in late 6th- and 5th-cent. BC Attic architecture, consisting of a torus as base surface, a concavely curved trochilus lying on it and a further torus on top of that, and dispenses with the spira as an …

[German version] Architectural component, i.e. a tongue-shaped projection from the face of a wall. A widespread practice in the ancient art of building (altars, temples, house architecture etc.). In stone construction, the ante stands out against the wall surface with profiled elements, usually rests on an ante foot (ante base) and is crowned by a special ante capital ( Column). As of late classical times, the ante is occasionally separated from the wall by a monolithic execution and thus overly e…

[German version] (παλαίστρα, Latin palaestra). The palaistra developed in the 6th cent. BC as a core element of a gymnasium (with illustration) and, together with a dromos (an elongated running-track) and various long colonnades and covered walkways,  forms a  constitutive part of this type of architecture. A palaistra consists of a roughly square court, surrounded by a peristyle, and various suites of adjacent rooms. Palaistrai were used as places for wrestling; the associated rooms were used for exercising, changing and storing equipment. Greek palaistrai were public spaces,…

[German version] I. Definition In contrast to the townhouse ( domus) or the cottage ( casa; tugurium ), in Latin usage villa describes a combined residential and commercial building in the context of agriculture (V.), and occasionally an agricultural establishement including all facilities (usual term for this : praedium ). This connection with agriculture gradually dissipated in the 2nd cent. BC, a fact which is reflected in the increasingly differentiated range of terminology; along with the 'classical' v. rustica ('country house', 'country estate') which continued to …

[German version] A two-part building complex on the via sacra on the edge of the Forum Romanum (Forum [III 8]) in Rome, which, according to the ancient Roman mythologizing historiography, was supposed to have been built as his residence and place of office by the legendary king Numa Pompilius (Ov. Fast. 6,263 f.; Tac. Ann. 15,41; Cass. Dio fr. 1,6,2; Plut. Numa 14; Fest. 346-348; 439; cf. also [1. 328]). The excavated building of striking structure, with a three-roomed core facing the via sacra and a court annexe ([2] with illustration; presumably this court is what was meant by regium atr…

[German version] According to Suetonius (Augustus 100,4; cf. Str. 5,3,8) one of the earliest buildings built under Augustus on the Campus Martius in Rome. It was probably begun in 28 BC, inspired in form and content by the Maussoleum and the tomb of Alexander [4] the Great, and completed around 23 BC. A circular building with a total diameter of 87 m, it consisted of an indeterminate number of concentrical walls made of tuff, that had been several stories high and were connected by radial walls. T…

[German version] (θάλαμος/ thálamos). According to the earlier archaic perception a non-specific term for various rooms inside of a Greek house; according to more recent definition a bedroom of the master of the house or the women's apartments (cf. Hom. Il. 6,321; Hom. Od. 10,340 et passim), usually on the upper floor of a Classical Pastas or Prostas house (House [II] B) and therefore also according to Greek understanding belonging absolutely to the private sphere (Private sphere and public sphere). The ancient terminology is unclear; thalamos can also be the term for a weapo…

[German version] The plan layout of Greek  temples. An amphiprostylos is an ante temple ( Ante) without perimeter hall, which in front of the pronaos as well as on its rear side has an even number of columns each which are spread across the entire width of the building (cf. Vitr. De arch. 3,2,4). In comparison to the   prostylos , where the rows of columns decorate just the entrance and not the rear as well, the amphiprostylos is the form occurring less frequently. The most famous example is the temple of Nike on the Athenian Acropolis. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography H. Knell, Grundz…

[German version] (περίπτερος; perípteros). Colonnaded temple with only a single circle of columns (Temple), in contrast to the dipteros. The term appears in the Latin form for the first time in Vitruvius (3,2,1 et passim). The peripteros rises from a stepped base (Krepis [1]; Stylobate), in the 5th cent. BC with canonical 6×13 columns (in the 6th cent. BC other concepts can be found, esp. elongated forms, primarily in western Greece). It is the standard form of the Greek temple. The regularity of the column positions (Spacing, i…

[German version] The water basin in the  atrium of the Roman house in which rainwater from the  compluvium, the opening of the atrium, was collected and which was often part of a  cistern. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography E. M. Evans, The Atrium Complex in the Houses of Pompeii, 1980 R. Förtsch, Arch. Komm. zu den Villenbriefen des jüngeren Plinius, 1993, 30f.

[German version] From Latin ceno; originally the dining room on the upper floor of the Roman  house. From time to time the term cenaculum includes the entire upper floor (Varro, Ling. 5,162; Fest. 54,6); the rooms described as cenacula were for accommodating guests of an inferior rank or slaves. They could also be the object of a lease; cenaculum became in this context synonymous with shabby housing. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Georges, 1, 1067, s.v. c. (sources) G. Matthiae, s.v. Cenacolo, EAA 2, 467 (bibliography).

[German version] Greek ἀ(ι)ετός/ a(i)etós (architectural inscriptions: [1. 33f.]); Latin fastigium, fronton; triangular front, framed by the horizontal and raking cornices, of the saddleback roof of a typical Greek columned building; sacred architecture, the gable field (tympanon, for the terminology see: Vitr. De arch. 3,5,12; 4,3,2) is frequently decorated with sculptures; cf.  architectural sculpture. The pitch and hight of a gable in  proportion to the columns and the entablature provide some indicati…